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There's been another update to the PTS with new construction items and a bunch of minor updates. Two of the standouts to me are that Archers can now destroy modules in a single shot and engineers piloting ESFs will allow for a very small nanite health regen to the aircraft. And a big boo for the C-Barrier on the ANT being nerfed again!

PTS will be coming down this evening for an update. The following changes will be introduced:

New Construction Objects

· Light Vehicle Terminal - The Light Vehicle Terminal can be used to spawn small and medium sized ground vehicles at the cost of both Cortium and Auraxium.
· Light Air Terminal - The Light Air Terminal can be used to spawn light aircraft such as ESFs and Valkyries at the cost of both Cortium and Auraxium.
· PillBox - Small fortified structure that can provide cover for both infantry and deployed equipment
· Elysium Spawn Tube - When powered by an adjacent silo the Elysium Spawn Tube will provide a spawn point for nearby allies at the cost of a small amount of Cortium each spawn. Additionally, it includes a matrixing option, allowing those linked to it to spawn at it from anywhere on the continent. You can only matrix to one point at a time.
· Ammo Dispenser - When constructed, it can supply ammo to nearby ground vehicles.

More Air to Air Balance Tweaks
· Air to Air (Tomcat/Photon Pods) range increase certification line from 10m per rank to 16m per rank
· Coyote direct damage from 100 to 75
· Coyotes have received minor tracking adjustments which should make them possible to dodge
· Air Hammer indirect minimum damage from 50 to 20
· Light PPA indirect minimum damage from 1 to 25
· Light PPA indirect max damage radius from 0.75m to 1m
· High-Capacity fuel tanks from 200% capacity increase to 220% capacity increase

WLT-Howler
· The Howler is a new primary mining laser for the ANT which can quickly extract Cortium from smaller nodes, but will overheat during prolonged use.

More Changes and New Stuff
· Reduced capture time of large outposts to 15 minutes from 21 minutes when holding 2/3 of the capture points; capture time when holding all points scales down as well to around 5 mintues.
· Territory capture victory points now begin being granted at 15% of regions held; this means that all faction will now start the map with 5-6 Victory Points.
· Victory Points needed to capture a continent has been increase to 20 from 15
o Note: Some maps start with uneven territory distribution and therfore start with uneven VP
· Added more auraxium stuff to the test server auraxium bundle
· Added a WidowMaker armor decal, and allowed it to be set as an outfit decal.
· All ranks of the medical applicator now revives soldiers at 100% health instead of just the final rank. (Does not apply to MAX units).
· Updated spot callout VO for the Flash, Liberator, and Valkyrie to make use of more specific VO lines.
· Moved Ace Tool lower in the screen when holding a construction object
· Scythe, Reaver and Mosquito Nanite Auto Repair: Regen Delay lowered to 8 seconds down from 12.
· Engineers piloting Scythes, Reaver or Mosquitos will enable health regeneration on the vehicle equivalent to rank 1 nanite auto repair system but with a 12 second damage delay. This does not stack with the nanite auto repair item.
· New Player Studio decals and cosmetics added
· A minor tracking delay has been reintroduced to G2A and G2G lock-on launchers.
•Damage interrupt duration for shields generated by the Structure Shield Module (excluding HIVE Bubble shield) has been increased to 1.5 seconds from 1 second
•Health regen rate for shields generated by the Structure Shield Module (excluding HIVE Bubble shield) has been decreased to 200 per second from 330 per second
•Intitial health (health after spawning) for shields generated by the Structure Shield Module (excluding HIVE Bubble shield) has been decreased to 500 from 1000
· Adjusted tooltips for various weapon attachments.
· Lumine Edge, Ripper, and Carver activated damage from 1000 to 1050.
· Titan-150 HE and Supernova VPC indirect max damage from 1000 to 1050.
· Proximity Mine and Bouncing Betty indirect max damage from 1000 to 1050.
· Blackhand min damage from 250 to 275.
· Chameleon Module will now restore 20% max Infiltrator energy if personal shield "shatters" while cloaked.
· NS-AM7 Archer can now destroy small deployables in a single shot.
· All ranks of the repair tool are now able to deconstruct enemy tank mines. Previously, only the max rank would enable tank mine deconstruction.

Bug Fixes
· Fixed a number of damage resist issues with the ANT C-Barrier shield, including some weapons not causing damage.
· Removed distortion and autotile when close from all construction related shields
· Austria Vehicle Decal should no longer be listed in the infantry gear section of the depot
· Portugal Armor Decal should no longer be listed in the vehicle gear section of the depot
· Fixed incorrect silencer audio on TRAP-M1 and TS2 Inquisitor
· Fixed Northeast ammo tower at Mekala Tech Plant on Amerish
· Sunderer A7Comm Array should no longer cause cosmetic exterior items to not display
· Fixed issue where the Sunderer Logistics ribbon and directive would not properly update.
· Fixed an issue where Triage did not work with the Valkrye and ANT.
· LC2 Lynx' forward grip now properly reduces horizontal recoil by 25%, was previously reducing recoil by 16.5%.
· Harasser's Composite Armor should no longer cover the decal locations.
· Fixed an issue where the repair tool would not play audio when repairing cloaked vehicles for some factions. When repairing a cloaked vehicle, the repair shimmer is only visible to the local player (only the player repairing the vehicle sees the shimmer, no one else)

I don't think that means the archer can kill base modules in one shot, that'd be absurd. I think that means things like ammo dispensers and mines can be reliably one-shotted.

I'm really happy to see the large tower capture timers being reigned in a bit. I'm not sure it's enough, but ANY movement there helps.

The new base stuff is interesting. Actually kinda worried about the vehicle terminals; sudden vehicle spam is potentially really powerful, and if you can pull Sunderers and MBTs from there that's probably way too much, Cortium cost or no. Will be interesting to see how it plays out. The ammo tower is a much needed addition; might also make an ANT supported tank column more viable, especially if it can give ammo without a silo!

The spawn tube is VERY interesting, in particular the matrixing option. That will remove the necessity to keep Sunderers around and periodically refresh their timers, and will make it much more viable to build a base and then move your force off it instead of sticking around to guard it against an attack that might never come. Matrix your entire force to it, then just keep a skeleton crew there to provide eyes on and provide a baseline defense (and rotate them out easily when they get bored). As long as you've sufficiently protected your HIVE against surgical strikes with mines and turrets, you should have time to redeploy a squad or two in an emergency.

I also wonder if that matrixing can be used in other ways. It's essentially a "recall" button; I would not be surprised to see it employed as a way to move a big force around the map ala redeployside. If it were, I think I'd have a lot less animosity to it than I did towards the aforementioned map control strategy, given the big setup costs and remote spawn location.

Another detail of the spawn tube is that it'll cost Cortium to spawn. This means that Sunderer spawns, if available, are preferred, and that if you can catch a base without Sunderers you can drain the silo by attrition.

Also interesting that the shield module is getting nerfed; I didn't even know it was possible to drop those shields! I don't know what the max health looks like (probably pretty high) but these changes make it easier to drop and easier to KEEP dropped. That offers interesting possibilities for countering seemingly invincible fortifications, focus fire the shields and then sweep the defenders off them.

Heck, even knowing those shields can be knocked down is helpful; when I thought they couldn't be I just held my fire!

Comment

-In regards to the ant shield I was under the assumption that the health pool was dictated by how much cortium the ant has inside of its belly, essentially making the healthbar of the ant the cortium It has inside, well that and minus the burn time as well.

-It also sounds like its the smaller vehichles that can be pulled, gals and mbts are probably going to be absent.

On a side note of times... I would actually be curious to see what a game with out timers would be like, simply replaced with slightly longer to capture points, You make sure no one gets on that point period, otherwise you lose it. Could be wishful thinking or broken, but it could be fun